NZEI: Listen To School Staff Concerns About Review

NZEI: Listen To School Staff Concerns About Reviews

“NZEI Te Riu Roa members support the appointment of a mediator to take a second look at the school reorganisations planned in Invercargill and would welcome the extension of the mediation process across the other 10 regions also undergoing reviews,” says the union’s National President, Colin Tarr.

NZEI Te Riu Roa represents teachers and principals in primary, intermediate, middle and area schools and support staff in both the primary sector and in secondary schools.

“The Education Minister should appoint the mediators and tell them to listen closely to what the teachers, principals and support staff in the schools under review have to say about the planned reorganisations.”

“The Government should also instruct the Ministry of Education to sit down with NZEI and address the industrial issues created by school reviews.”

“The reviews run the risk of driving experienced and highly skilled principals and teachers out of the areas under review and out of education altogether at a time when they are most needed.”

“These are the staff that the children and communities know and who are vital in ensuring that good learning environments are maintained at schools going through the stress and upheaval of a review.”

“It is essential that clauses providing job security for staff in schools under review are included in their collective agreements to stop this exodus. The Ministry is ignoring this issue and the Government must tell them to front up so we can address this serious problem”

NZEI Te Riu Roa members say the Government must: Protect school staff going through reviews by having clauses in their collective agreements that give them job security. Stop the school closures the Minister plans to implement next year. If schools are to be reorganised after a review they should be merged not closed. Under a closure all the staff lose their jobs under a merger they are retained. Stop using children aged 10 to 12 in Years 7 and 8 to prop up struggling secondary schools Guarantee that every school has a principal.

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